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Wow. On seeing that figure fly past I would have sworn that, for a second or two, I was back in CoH. I was > < close to trying to use the keyboard to go after it, thinking, "Hey, where're you off to?" But, yeah, enough about me.

It's awesome to see the animations in action. I suppose once you're this far along the rest is mostly fine-tuning, which I imagine is relatively simple. When I saw that guy jumping off the roof and the other guy crawling on the adjacent building, I had to wonder if it will be possible to use wall-crawlers as ledges.

I like the sound of that! I just thought of something posting on another thread,with the wall crawling has there been any clipping issues with the side of the building, I think we all remember the enemies stuck in the walls, having to restart missions =/ lol

—

The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One

Zerohour wrote:
Looks great thanks for the tech update. One question though. In that final scene, why is it so choppy?

64 square km of terrain at full resolution.

*does math in head*

Eight klicks on a side. That's about five miles for those who like the challenge of complicated measurement systems. ^_^
Corner to corner is about 11.3 km... At the advertised fifty mph (about 80 km/h), we're looking at eight minutes or so to get clear across that map...

Zerohour wrote:
Looks great thanks for the tech update. One question though. In that final scene, why is it so choppy?

64 square km of terrain at full resolution.

It was so choppy I actually got a migraine from watching that video...

Whilst the resolution was lower than what I expected (which is only 480p) the frame rate was bad enough to make me go "wow... you guys have a LOT of work ahead of you"

—

Quote:

1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own
2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty
3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner
4) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.

Loved this update, I can't wait to see more final animations! But... can we talk about Super Jump? To me, one of the best parts of Jump was that you had a great forward momentum, as well as a high jump arc too.

I'm hoping we aren't seeing the final forward momentum and arc, though!

It was so choppy I actually got a migraine from watching that video...
Whilst the resolution was lower than what I expected (which is only 480p) the frame rate was bad enough to make me go "wow... you guys have a LOT of work ahead of you"

Darth Fez wrote:

Also remember that they run this on a $500 (as of two years ago, now?) laptop, not some post-production monster machine from Hollywood.

I understand the Devs have a very commendable desire to make sure their game can run on lower end machines to make sure as many players as possible will be able to play the game. And I'm also well aware that the Devs of this game don't have a lot of disposalable money lying around to buy $5,000+ bleeding edge monster game machines.

But I would really have to stress that at least for any future videos or other content they want to release that they do it on their fastest, most capable machines they have available. Perception is going to count for quite a bit here and simply telling us that these are "pre-alpha" tests might not be enough to make people realize these aren't finished products we're looking at. Gangrel has a point here - there's no reason to allow people to think that the "chopiness" of that video is the fault of the game itself when it probably just was the fact that the video was recorded on a computer that simply didn't have the "horsepower" to render the graphics smoothly.

Again I commend the Devs on ensuring we won't need "$5,000+ bleeding edge monster game machines" to play this game. But as far as any content we see in these videos the Devs really need to do their best to make it all "look" as great and flawless as it might look on one of those super machines if for no other reason than to cast the best light on the game.

Gangrel wrote:
It was so choppy I actually got a migraine from watching that video...
Whilst the resolution was lower than what I expected (which is only 480p) the frame rate was bad enough to make me go "wow... you guys have a LOT of work ahead of you"

Darth Fez wrote:

Well, I'm currently doing my stuff on a hand-me-down Dell laptop. Dual core, 4 GB of RAM. What is needed is a full build compiled and run on one of those "high end monsters" Any volunteers? :D
Also remember that they run this on a $500 (as of two years ago, now?) laptop, not some post-production monster machine from Hollywood.

I understand the Devs have a very commendable desire to make sure their game can run on lower end machines to make sure as many players as possible will be able to play the game. And I'm also well aware that the Devs of this game don't have a lot of disposalable money lying around to buy $5,000+ bleeding edge monster game machines.
But I would really have to stress that at least for any future videos or other content they want to release that they do it on their fastest, most capable machines they have available. Perception is going to count for quite a bit here and simply telling us that these are "pre-alpha" tests might not be enough to make people realize these aren't finished products we're looking at. Gangrel has a point here - there's no reason to allow people to think that the "chopiness" of that video is the fault of the game itself when it probably just was the fact that the video was recorded on a computer that simply didn't have the "horsepower" to render the graphics smoothly.
Again I commend the Devs on ensuring we won't need "$5,000+ bleeding edge monster game machines" to play this game. But as far as any content we see in these videos the Devs really need to do their best to make it all "look" as great and flawless as it might look on one of those super machines if for no other reason than to cast the best light on the game.

There is stuff being explored to improve the output. That video wasn't using the special elements that are undergoing more testing. I'm not sure which of our map segments (or how many) was being used for this production but I think this was created just to give people a sense of the size of the world and not striving for visual perfection. I'm one of the map people but I need to clear before I describe our full map structure and size. That strip of icons seen in the original post was my work as well but, again, I'd need to clear more before fully describing what those are and such (or even if they are a final product!)

OK let me guess the buttons...because the 2nd one had me wondering
Parkour. Line swinging. grappling hook. Teleport (?). wall crawling. super speed. super jump, and FLY
close? Dead on?
I just wonder what symbol would end up replacing the spider? Geiko already has dibs on the gecko
a good Spiderman clone would have parkour, line swinging, wall crawling and super jump. rather expensive considering most will only have one or two movement powers

Maybe Badge Hunters, will earn points towards their "Arrested Imitation" badge when they report 3rd party look a likes in CoT! :)
Ohh, maybe 2 times is enough? I rather not have badge hunters constantly coxing others friends to intentionally create offending characters just for the badge for every toon. :/

OK let me guess the buttons...because the 2nd one had me wondering
Parkour. Line swinging. grappling hook. Teleport (?). wall crawling. super speed. super jump, and FLY
close? Dead on?
I just wonder what symbol would end up replacing the spider? Geiko already has dibs on the gecko
a good Spiderman clone would have parkour, line swinging, wall crawling and super jump. rather expensive considering most will only have one or two movement powers

Awesome! Sooooo exciting (must... not... squeeeeeeeeeee...) to see things starting to come together at this level. And I love the look of the buttons, clean, clear, yet very aesthetic (aw, I liked the old spider, it was gorgeous art.)

+1 to Lothic about always casting the game in the best light.

While it was clear to many of us what was going on with the choppiness and pixelation, most people just don't have the stomach for seeing how sausage is made, they just want the pretty brat all nicely arranged on the plate.

Though they love brats, if they saw how it was made they'd never eat it. No reason to leave room for people to get turned off to a game they'd actually love once polished a bit.

a good Spiderman clone would have parkour, line swinging, wall crawling and super jump. rather expensive considering most will only have one or two movement powers

SuperJump is debatable - sure he can leap an impressive distance, but generally not SUPER far distances. Besides, some of the movement modes, like Parkour, may have some extra leaping ability built-in.

Parkour, Swing, Grapple, Teleport, Spider Climb (I've already replace that image with one I hope is safer), Super Speed, Super Jump, and Fly.
Here's the strip revised:
The two on the left are what an empty power slot is looking like for now.

If that image is still triggering people then might I suggest a side-on silhouette of a hand with fingers touching a vertical wall. Should get the point across.

AvelWorldCreator wrote:
Parkour, Swing, Grapple, Teleport, Spider Climb (I've already replace that image with one I hope is safer), Super Speed, Super Jump, and Fly.
Here's the strip revised:
The two on the left are what an empty power slot is looking like for now.

If that image is still triggering people then might I suggest a side-on silhouette of a hand with fingers touching a vertical wall. Should get the point across.

Oh thanks! Actually a silhouette of a person climbing a wall even. Let me see what I can come up with...

Interdictor wrote:
AvelWorldCreator wrote:
Parkour, Swing, Grapple, Teleport, Spider Climb (I've already replace that image with one I hope is safer), Super Speed, Super Jump, and Fly.
Here's the strip revised:
The two on the left are what an empty power slot is looking like for now.

If that image is still triggering people then might I suggest a side-on silhouette of a hand with fingers touching a vertical wall. Should get the point across.

Oh thanks! Actually a silhouette of a person climbing a wall even. Let me see what I can come up with...
How about this?

I too would like to +1 the idea of maybe upping the quality of future videos. Unfortunately it doesn't give a very good impression, especially to people that stumble across this project and have no idea.

warcabbit wrote:
Well, based on your feedback, I believe we'll be updating that video in the near future.
Aaand based on other feedback, we're replacing a specific insect in the power tray design due to phobias.

I too would like to +1 the idea of maybe upping the quality of future videos. Unfortunately it doesn't give a very good impression, especially to people that stumble across this project and have no idea.
You can only make a first impression ONCE.

We tried that, and had people complaining that we were not making a game which people could run on their machines.

—

Technical Director

Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider

Zerohour wrote:
I too would like to +1 the idea of maybe upping the quality of future videos. Unfortunately it doesn't give a very good impression, especially to people that stumble across this project and have no idea.
You can only make a first impression ONCE.

We tried that, and had people complaining that we were not making a game which people could run on their machines.

I loved the recent video, rough edges and all. But I'm willing to bet that my several decades' worth of computer software development experience allows me to see past the "choppy" video and appreciate what you've done so far.

Problem is there's going to be a significant number of people who'll look at it and judge it, despite every warning that it's a demonstration of pre-alpha content, to be somehow luckluster or inferior to what they're expecting. Ultimately people are fickle and would rather assume that what they see in videos like this is exactly what they'll get regardless of whatever their machine can actually handle.

I'd rather you worry some people that your game is "too cool" for their low end machines than to make most other people worry your game is not going to look good enough to bother with on ANY machine. You'll have plenty of time to reassure the people with lower end machines they'll be fine. But as was pointed out by Zerohour you can only make a first impression once.

As Empyrean implied you can't please everyone no matter what you do. I'm just suggesting you should be erring on the side of making people think "this game might be too fancy for me until I upgrade" rather than "this game doesn't look to be worth my time now much less 5 years from now".

Empyrean wrote:

My +1 to Lothic was in the spirit of wanting this to succeed, as I think her post was. But what do I know :P?

I was mostly just trying to side-step the notion that you could summarize what I said with the wonderfully loaded phrase "hide the sausage". ;)

SpaceMoose wrote:
warcabbit wrote:
Well, based on your feedback, I believe we'll be updating that video in the near future.
Aaand based on other feedback, we're replacing a specific insect in the power tray design due to phobias.

SPIDER!!!!!
*Jumps on top of Izzy*

No fear. I already swatted the spiders.
-------------------------------------
The 'wherever they stick me" Team

While I don't disagree with Lothic and Empyrean, I think that is also a concern that can wait for when the figures doing their thing in the video are recognizably characters/heroes, rather than mostly featureless grey figures.

If someone is put off from playing the game because one or the other video isn't perfectly pretty they probably weren't really on board, anyway. Others will also simply have to suck up the fact that if they only want to see marketable material they'd best step out and wait for the beta to be announced. If you don't want to see the sausage being made then you don't go into the kitchen while the sausage is being made. I'm all for casting the game in the best light. I'm not convinced that catering to ignorance is the way to achieve that.

I don't disagree with Darth either, not one bit, but it can be a sticky wicket.

I think the issue is that MWM doesn't intend this to be "marketing" yet, but some are concerned that at least to some extent it may be, in fact, marketing--whether they intend it to be or not.

And effective marketing, whether anyone likes it or not, has, at least to some extent, to take general levels of ignorance into account.

But, I want to reiterate that none of this discussion takes away from the fact that this was an AWESOME, nerdgasm and squeel-inspiring update. And that MWM has shown integrity every step of the way, often under moderate to heavy "friendly" fire from us.

I do have a question. What is the difference between Swing and Grapple? Really when I think of Swinging it's either Spiderman webs or Batman's Grapple line type. But I can't think of much difference between the two. perhaps Grapple just to go up a side of a building? Naw that wouldn't be very useful as a travel power so must be some kind of swing or zip-l... A Zip-line like feature then launch the grapple forward and it pulls? So yeah I like some clarification there.

Okay who cut the onion when I saw the figure flying?

I also like the figure of the person climbing rather then a spider. Like with the Tom Cruse above not all wall climbing is due to spider powers.

—

--------------------------------------------------------
Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP

Gangrel wrote:
It was so choppy I actually got a migraine from watching that video...
Whilst the resolution was lower than what I expected (which is only 480p) the frame rate was bad enough to make me go "wow... you guys have a LOT of work ahead of you"

Darth Fez wrote:
Also remember that they run this on a $500 (as of two years ago, now?) laptop, not some post-production monster machine from Hollywood.

I understand the Devs have a very commendable desire to make sure their game can run on lower end machines to make sure as many players as possible will be able to play the game. And I'm also well aware that the Devs of this game don't have a lot of disposalable money lying around to buy $5,000+ bleeding edge monster game machines.
But I would really have to stress that at least for any future videos or other content they want to release that they do it on their fastest, most capable machines they have available. Perception is going to count for quite a bit here and simply telling us that these are "pre-alpha" tests might not be enough to make people realize these aren't finished products we're looking at. Gangrel has a point here - there's no reason to allow people to think that the "chopiness" of that video is the fault of the game itself when it probably just was the fact that the video was recorded on a computer that simply didn't have the "horsepower" to render the graphics smoothly.
Again I commend the Devs on ensuring we won't need "$5,000+ bleeding edge monster game machines" to play this game. But as far as any content we see in these videos the Devs really need to do their best to make it all "look" as great and flawless as it might look on one of those super machines if for no other reason than to cast the best light on the game.

One thing that other companies do, especially if they are putting out the "rough cut" videos is by putting a notice up at the start of the video just stating this fact.

It helps a LOT, because you are explaining the situation. A lousy video goes over better if you put "Using the back up machine to record this as the PSU of the main machine took a dump 23 hours earlier".

Or you can just put a link (or a small description) of the machine being used to record it (and yes, I am aware of how much processing power it can take to actually record video on a machine... it isn't necessarily as much as you think, or it is more than you think if you are using a particularly old machine)

But if you have several different machines that are capable of recording said footage? Be consistent; always use the same machine wherever possible (or rough equivalent spec). If you chop and change so often that we don't know what you are using to record it then how can we tell if something is screwy because of the engine, or because of the machine or because of aliens?

And now you have shown this. Yes, showing off a video running on a "high end" machine might well put people off from playing it, but it is better than on the flip side showing something running badly on a below min spec laptop. Because how are we supposed to know what it was recorded on if you have several different (in terms of specs) recording devices? Is it the $5000 PC dying a death or is it a $200 laptop that is several years old just not having the grunt to run it?

—

Quote:

1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own
2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty
3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner
4) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.

Interdictor wrote:
AvelWorldCreator wrote:
Parkour, Swing, Grapple, Teleport, Spider Climb (I've already replace that image with one I hope is safer), Super Speed, Super Jump, and Fly.
Here's the strip revised:
The two on the left are what an empty power slot is looking like for now.

If that image is still triggering people then might I suggest a side-on silhouette of a hand with fingers touching a vertical wall. Should get the point across.

Oh thanks! Actually a silhouette of a person climbing a wall even. Let me see what I can come up with...
How about this?

That does look like a guy crawling on a wall... or John Travolta dancing. A disco pose animation set for teleport, perhaps?
Seriously, though. I like it. Count me among the arachnophobes.

I loved the video!

Even the rough animations look promising. Super jump looks like he is being propelled up by his legs. The last jump animation I saw in Valiance looks more like the toon is being lifted by an invisible hand.

Wonderful update.
Cool flypose.
Is the toon hovering after each BAMF? Is that what that was showing?
Five square miles of map space? Eight minutes to traverse across? That will be awesome.
I got an inkling of a hint we might be able to see the space populated with buildings/terrain...?

Sometimes I think about the old game, how I would look forward to playing it on certain days.

Wonderful update.
Cool flypose.
Is the toon hovering after each BAMF? Is that what that was showing?
Five square miles of map space? Eight minutes to traverse across? That will be awesome.
I got an inkling of a hint we might be able to see the space populated with buildings/terrain...?
Sometimes I think about the old game, how I would look forward to playing it on certain days.
I look forward to playing this game!

Yes, I believe our hover time on teleport is about 5 seconds.

Our map currently breaks down into 19x23 sections each 1009x1009 data points. Right now I'm having a problem with extraneous data points in each file I'm needing to clean up each tile (8 points on two sides) so practically 1001x1001 points. Each point represents 1 meter I believe so (1001x18+1009)x(22x1001+1009)/10000/2.5899752356 should give you the square mileage. I may be in error and the data points represent centimeters instead of meters, but I'm pretty confident based on the results. (13 miles x 13 miles roughly). I'm not sure all of it will be immediately playable but we are striving to do just that.

Honestly I just don't get this "fear" of alienating a tiny group of people who's machines can't handle this game. I would suspect that there will be different graphical options to choose from in the settings (low, medium, high, ultra, etc.) as well as particle effect options, draw distance, anti aliasing variables and so on. If someone can't make it work with all of those choices, the problem is not from MWM, it's from the person trying to use their toaster to play a PC game.

No, that's a square five miles on a side, for twenty-five square miles.
If the 64 km^2 Doctor Tyche mentioned are arranged in a square, that is. ^_^

Was that to me? The guy building the maps? One side is (1001x18+1009) meters and the other is (1001x22+1009) meters (19.027 km x 23.031 km) The portion of the map in the video is indeed 5x5 miles, but that's not the whole map.

Interdictor wrote:
AvelWorldCreator wrote:
Parkour, Swing, Grapple, Teleport, Spider Climb (I've already replace that image with one I hope is safer), Super Speed, Super Jump, and Fly.
Here's the strip revised:
The two on the left are what an empty power slot is looking like for now.

If that image is still triggering people then might I suggest a side-on silhouette of a hand with fingers touching a vertical wall. Should get the point across.

Oh thanks! Actually a silhouette of a person climbing a wall even. Let me see what I can come up with...
How about this?

That can work as well. I don't expect this to be representative of the final GUI but this should work for now.

avelworldcreator wrote:
Interdictor wrote:
AvelWorldCreator wrote:
Parkour, Swing, Grapple, Teleport, Spider Climb (I've already replace that image with one I hope is safer), Super Speed, Super Jump, and Fly.
Here's the strip revised:
The two on the left are what an empty power slot is looking like for now.

If that image is still triggering people then might I suggest a side-on silhouette of a hand with fingers touching a vertical wall. Should get the point across.

Oh thanks! Actually a silhouette of a person climbing a wall even. Let me see what I can come up with...
How about this?

That can work as well. I don't expect this to be representative of the final GUI but this should work for now.

What make say that? It's only a fraction of the total. There may be additional changes but probably more additive than anything.

I do like that the Icons are larger than 32 x 32 though, 'specially with larger and larger display resolutions now. :D
Is 64 x 64 too big still? :<
Ehhh, eventually... it'll be the recommended size. ;)

Does it have to be Round?
Are Round Powers in the tray something that Superhero games try to abide to?

Others: I'm STILL not a fan of the Square Powers in the powers tray, and especially that Clockwise Wipe!!!!! HATE IT! >:(
I dont want powers that aren't ready/recharged.. to steal my attention/focus... Some MMOs, looking at a powers tray feels like looking at a planes cockpit dials when its free-falling. :[

Similar approval of the change to Wall Crawling icon. The styling for it reminds me more of Crazy Climber.

I would strongly recommend redoing the icons for Swing and for Teleport. I'd imagine that the Teleport icon ought to look more like a human figure dematerializing (ala "transporter effect") with the dematerialization "in progress" in the icon. That way you've got solid on one part and particle-ized on the other end of the icon.

For the Swing icon, you want something more like lifting the feet at the bottom of the arc before zooming upwards. So something more like this (minus the tire, obviously) ...

... or an appropriately themed "trapeze artist" freeze frame image more like this (albeit with a single line instead of rung) ...

warcabbit wrote:

Swing is Tarzanny, going around in elegant parabolas. Grapple is sort of aim-and-yoink like Darkwing Duck.

Or aim-and-yoink like 3D Maneuver Gear in Attack on Titan.

=====

The thing is, I'm wondering why you'd WANT to have Swinging and Grapnel be different and distinct movement Powers. Swinging is just pendulum physics/engineering and gravity. This can be "emulated" by a Grapnel system that "yoinks on command" (so to speak). This is why I said previously, in the other thread, that what you really want to have is a pendulum mechanics system robust enough to cover not only rapid "yoink" travel but also "no yoink" travel as typified by Spiderman swinging that is really just a sequence of pendulum moves as well as bungee/BASE jumping (that is just hop off and fall).

The factors to control for are:

Speed of "projectile" to fasten onto/establish anchor point (related to animation speed)

Maximum range from caster to anchor point (how far you can "shoot")

"Reel in/reel out" speed of the tether line between caster an anchor point (how fast you can "yoink" to the anchor)

Stretch factor of the tether line (bounding the limits of acceleration changes)

So long as there is a way to enhance/augment/refine each of these characteristics, you can effectively model anything and everything from 3D Maneuver Gear up to James Bond base jumping off a dam to Tarzan swinging on vines to Spiderman swinging on web lines.

The speed of the projectile from caster to anchor point does not require anything in the way of UI element(s) when using the Power. That would purely be something that gets slotted into the Power as an Augment/Refinement in the Powers window. This is an animation speed modifier.

The maximum range of the projectile from caster to anchor point also does not require anything in the way of UI element(s) when using the Power. That would purely be something that gets slotted into the Power as an Augment/Refinement in the Powers window. This is purely a range modifier.

The reel in/reel out speed of the tether line is something that would require a UI element to control. My thought is to simply repurpose the Forward/Back UI movement commands for this purpose when the Power is Toggled ON. Forward will "yoink" the caster towards the anchor point until reaching maximum velocity. Back will "play out" the length of the tether until reaching the maximum range of the Power. This allows the Player to control the length of the pendulum. At very high speeds (most likely requiring investment of Augments/Refinements) the reel in "yoink" speed of the tether will be sufficient to emulate 3D Maneuver Gear performance for substantially horizontal travel with very high rates of closure between caster and anchor point.

The stretch factor of the tether will determine the bounding for acceleration changes along the direction of the tether to the anchor point. A very stretchy "bungee" type tether would bound for relatively low changes in acceleration, yielding a "smoother" acceleration/deceleration curve over longer periods of time. A very non-stretchy "steel cable" type tether would allow for very high changes in acceleration, yielding a more sudden and violent acceleration/deceleration curve over very short periods of time. This would not necessarily require a separate UI control factor for it, although it would prove to be an interesting challenge if there actually was one. If a UI control factor is desired (and I know I'd want one!), I'd recommend use of Jump (as an On/Off toggle) while in the process of moving using this Power. There would also be an Augment/Refinement aspect to this in the Powers window.

Here's how this would all come together.

WHILE YOUR CHARACTER IS IN CONTACT WITH A SURFACE ... you are operating under "normal" Forward/Backward/Jump rules. While your character is "falling" but interacting by tether with an anchor point due to use of the Grapnel Power, the Forward/Backward/Jump commands are repurposed to serve the Grapnel Power. So the first conditional is ... are you standing on firm ground (or clinging to a wall)? If YES, use normal movement rules. If NO, use Grapnel movement rules.

Note that this would mean that in order to "switch" from running on the ground to using a Grapnel movement mode, all you have to do is make a "quick hop" into the air, and as soon as you're no longer in contact with (in this case) the ground, you're automagically switched over into Grapnel movement mode WHILE GRAPNEL IS TOGGLED ON.

To "fire" the Grapnel at an anchor point, simply Toggle the Power ON.
To "disengage" your tether line from an anchor point, simple Toggle the Power OFF.
Your Grapnel can engage a single anchor point at a time. If you need to change anchor points, simply Toggle OFF and then immediately Toggle ON.

To "reel yourself in" towards the anchor point, simply NOT be in contact with a surface (either the ground or a wall if Wall Crawling), press your Forward hotkey and your character will be accelerated towards the anchor point.

To "reel yourself out" away from the anchor point, simply NOT be in contact with a surface (either the ground or a wall if Wall Crawling), press your Backward hotkey and your character will be allowed to move away from the anchor point provided that there is an acceleration providing force in that direction, which will typically be gravity (although not always). This allows the Player to voluntarily "lengthen" the pendulum tether to the anchor point if there is sufficient centripetal force to do so or other "free fall" vectors of movement are in play.

The "stretchiness" factor of the tether line will, by default, fall into the mid-range. If enhanced through Augments/Refinements, this factor will automatically be reduced ... but if the Jump hotkey is held down while using Grapnel movement rules, the effect of the Augments/Refinements on the "stretchiness" factor of the tether line will be inverted. The basic idea is something like this, using a 0-100 scale range for clarity of illustration. Assume an unmodified base value of 50.

For the purposes of this illustration, a value of 10 would represent a fast/hard "yoink" and a value of 90 would represent a slow/easy "stretch" like a bungee cord. So the enhancement via Augments/Refinements how "far" away from the median value the stretch factor goes ... and the use of the Jump hotkey allows Player control of "which direction" that deviation away from the median value gets directed any any one time, either up or down, with the default being in favor if faster/stiffer and the Jump key modifier being needed for anything slower/stretchier in terms of how quickly the centripetal force is allowed to ramp up. Too slow and you won't get a fast enough "yoink" towards the anchor point after a quick hop up off the ground to pull a 3D Maneuver Gear style of travel. Too fast and you'll suffer falling damage when BASE jumping off a Russian dam and come to a very sudden stop (because there's no stretch factor in the tether line).

Rig use of the Grapnel Power to use the "Teleport Keybind" (i.e. Shift+Click) to control where the anchor points will be and you're ready to rock'n'roll. Toggle ON, "yoink" then Toggle OFF when ready. Select new anchor point ... Toggle ON, "yoink" then Toggle OFF. Wash, rinse, repeat to keep moving.

Over to you, MWM Devs ...

—

Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.

That is indeed the Teleport icon. The figure is actually fading from the top but it's hard to manage the effect well at that small size. The idea of the "Swing" is supposed to be suggestive of a more Tarzan-ish swing. I'll see if I can enhance the effect more.

Let me see if my new image repo let's me share the file right.

Yep. It's working. I might be able to create a better top fade there - maybe. Quartering the resolution doesn't seem to do it right. I'm still going over both of your comments but I'm beginning to wonder if this subject is deserving of it's own thread by this point. Don't be afraid to use the contact feature of these forums to message me directly.

Ohh... i was thinking, there arent too many ways to tell what a teleport Icon Silhouette looks like..
.. so to me, the 1st think that pops into my head is something akin to:

I know, its not really teleporting, more of a portal.
But, it might cut down confusion for 1st timers seeing it. ;D

I guess, with Aesthetic Decoupling... maybe Teleport animation can use a Portal...
... Portals that you jump into, some allowing any player to use as well, Maybe flat on the Floor.
Even have a different looking one.. kinda like the Ouro portal. etc...

t.b.h. at 1st glance, i couldnt really tell what this icon was:
googling for "walk through portal silhouette" didnt give me what i wanted. :<
Closes one:
I do like that the Icons are larger than 32 x 32 though, 'specially with larger and larger display resolutions now. :D
Is 64 x 64 too big still? :<

Ehhh, eventually... it'll be the recommended size. ;)
Does it have to be Round?
Are Round Powers in the tray something that Superhero games try to abide to?
Others: I'm STILL not a fan of the Square Powers in the powers tray, and especially that Clockwise Wipe!!!!! HATE IT! >:(
I dont want powers that aren't ready/recharged.. to steal my attention/focus... Some MMOs, looking at a powers tray feels like looking at a planes cockpit dials when its free-falling. :[

Replying to you more directly, Izzy. I looked for a teleport icon via Google myself. What you see is a composite of several ideas. We were about to do the 32x32 but quickly decided upwards. The border of the icons is 5 pixels thick and is intended (as best as I could do it) to look like a typewriter key (something CoH did apparently). The faceplate is intended to look like a glass button. It's a common enough look in UIs lately and I could rapidly prototype it with a combination of XAML and the free utility KAXAML (yes, I'm quite happy to share my source markup). Buttons do typically come in round forms and the reason is a matter of real estate on the screen.

Here is my original idea for the button tray sections:
This was intended to save even more valuable screen real estate by allowing the background to be rotated 180-degrees to allow them to come flush against one another.

We do hope to allow the players to customize there controls more and more as we go on and so you (hopefully) can find something that is more comfortable for your own use in the future.

Ohh... i was thinking, there arent too many ways to tell what a teleport Icon Silhouette looks like..
.. so to me, the 1st think that pops into my head is something akin to:
I know, its not really teleporting, more of a portal.
But, it might cut down confusion for 1st timers seeing it. ;D
I guess, with Aesthetic Decoupling... maybe Teleport animation can use a Portal...
... Portals that you jump into, some allowing any player to use as well, Maybe flat on the Floor.
Even have a different looking one.. kinda like the Ouro portal. etc...

Interesting idea. A portal travel power is a good idea in its own right though.But having been a teleporter in CoH I can tell you their Teleport icon was even more cryptic. Some travel powers have obvious symbolism, but this is one that had me scratching my head. To top it off I think we are having two forms of teleport now. One is more of a click and lock on thing, and the other is an instant. Think "Bamf!" for the one.

Foradain wrote:
No, that's a square five miles on a side, for twenty-five square miles.
If the 64 km^2 Doctor Tyche mentioned are arranged in a square, that is. ^_^

Was that to me? The guy building the maps? One side is (1001x18+1009) meters and the other is (1001x22+1009) meters (19.027 km x 23.031 km) The portion of the map in the video is indeed 5x5 miles, but that's not the whole map.
(and what the heck is going on with my sig?)

avelworldcreator wrote:
Foradain wrote:
No, that's a square five miles on a side, for twenty-five square miles.
If the 64 km^2 Doctor Tyche mentioned are arranged in a square, that is. ^_^

Was that to me? The guy building the maps? One side is (1001x18+1009) meters and the other is (1001x22+1009) meters (19.027 km x 23.031 km) The portion of the map in the video is indeed 5x5 miles, but that's not the whole map.
(and what the heck is going on with my sig?)

No, that was to Robopez' post # 53, two above the post you quoted.
So, you're saying the map of the city is going to be bigger than what was making Doc Tyche's laptop stutter? Cool.
And you seem to be missing a ] after the hexadecimal code for the color. ^_^

Well, there is an engine feature that will prevent that we hope. Get rid of "zoning" and thanks for finding that sig bug for me. I wonder how I missed that.

For that I'll share a screen shot of one of the tools I've been creating to fix the map data:

Here is my original idea for the button tray sections:
This was intended to save even more valuable screen real estate by allowing the background to be rotated 180-degrees to allow them to come flush against one another.

For the love of Villainy ... ABSOLUTELY NOT !!!

My reason for being rejectionist to a "interlocking triangles" system is reasonably simple ... White Space.

The packing density of what you're proposing is no doubt quite high, but that's not the only consideration here. A fair number of people used the mouse (cursor) to click on icons directly. If you take away the white space offered by the "row of circles" scheme, you remove that white space between icons and correspondingly increase the odds/opportunities for misclicks.

A Player should never have to "fight the UI" on a more constant basis than the NPCs. Period. End of discussion.

So although the packing density of "circles in a row" (or column) is lower than you can get with interlocking triangles, I (for one) consider that a desirable feature to be maintained going forward, rather than a flaw to be done away with post haste.

Not trying to jump on your case or anything ... just laying down a firm marker and being clear about not only personal opinion but also perspective and rationale.

—

Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.

Let me see if my new image repo let's me share the file right.
Yep. It's working. I might be able to create a better top fade there - maybe.

I'm looking at this larger image and am at a loss to discern any useful level of "fade" that can't be excused as a lighting issue. This really doesn't look like someone Teleporting. My first thought is that this is some sort of "cage" or imprisonment Power. Bare minimum, this looks like an Immobilization effect, not a Teleport.

If you want inspiration for Teleport, may I suggest an examination of these tray icons from Star Trek Online as a possible source of inspiration?

. . . .

The first one there is for Photonic Fleet, which seems like an odd choice for a suggestion, but look at it again. Large in foreground, copy smaller and offset implying duplication at a distance. Twiddle the spacing on the bars to be a progressive interruption (more on one end, less on the other) and you ought to have the basis for a basic icon.

Alternatively, if you want to go with the "portal" idea, there's the Quantum Slipstream icons next in line. Either one would be reminiscent of the "Teleport Rings" we were all familiar with in City of Heroes in addition to having an inherent implication of movement into the distance. Something along these lines would also work quite well as a Teleport Power Icon.

The other two are the Lunge icon and the Accelerated Movement icon, both of which carry strong overtones of "fast movement" in their design. This stands in stark contrast to the "imprisoned man standing on a bomb going off" iconography shown here:

So if you're inclined to change the icon, please do.

—

Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.

avelworldcreator wrote:
Here is my original idea for the button tray sections:
This was intended to save even more valuable screen real estate by allowing the background to be rotated 180-degrees to allow them to come flush against one another.

For the love of Villainy ... ABSOLUTELY NOT !!!
My reason for being rejectionist to a "interlocking triangles" system is reasonably simple ... White Space.
The packing density of what you're proposing is no doubt quite high, but that's not the only consideration here. A fair number of people used the mouse (cursor) to click on icons directly. If you take away the white space offered by the "row of circles" scheme, you remove that white space between icons and correspondingly increase the odds/opportunities for misclicks.
A Player should never have to "fight the UI" on a more constant basis than the NPCs. Period. End of discussion.
So although the packing density of "circles in a row" (or column) is lower than you can get with interlocking triangles, I (for one) consider that a desirable feature to be maintained going forward, rather than a flaw to be done away with post haste.
Not trying to jump on your case or anything ... just laying down a firm marker and being clear about not only personal opinion but also perspective and rationale.

Don't worry, I canned it pretty quickly. It looked good, but wasn't practical for the reasons you cited.

It seems the picture of the new spider climb was deleted or something, I'm not able to see it :(
And about the interlocking triangle discussion, I personally liked the circles CoX had, but I do think the one you cooked up should be rounded on the outside adges as well, at least on one side.
Just an idea, but it would be cool to have ribbons that snap to the edge of the screen, that can roll in or retract out when clicked(with a lock option). I'll try to come up with a mock example

Fifth one from the left. Let me know if you still have issues. I'll try to work something out for you if that's the case.

I like your retractable ribbon idea. I'm going to work with that some if I can but I'm looking forward to your mock up. If you want I'll try to work out a time where you can work with me directly in mocking it up.

As for the rounded edge I'm a little unclear about what you mean by that. The idea is the buttons are on movable segments that the player can position as they see fit. The default is the single layer bar that we have been present here (like CoX did). Here is the actual image that gets overlaid by the button. Notice the beveled edges. The original texture there is was brushed steel that I tinted blue shading towards purple (this last was Shadow Elusive's concept - not the steel, just the color. In fact much of the team bounces ideas off of me.) I suspect you are thinking of the bar as a whole and having one end (or side) rounded like a tab for your retraction idea. Let me know if that's what you might be meaning.

I posted the pic in #77, do you see it? Unfortunately I'm not at my home PC right now or I would try to make it better with animations and whatnot but that will have to do I guess

So instead of it being a plain rectangle it comes in from the side and has a rounded end so you can retract/extend out/ or pull it completely off of the edge. If it comes completely off the edge then the other end will round out as well. But if you drag it to any edge it will snap in and can be slid up or down or rearranged with other tabs as desired. It can be shrunk down or added on to up to 10 I guess is the limit?

For example, Picture it working sort of like the windows start button, click it and it brings out the tab, click it again and it goes away

—

The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One

avelworldcreator wrote:
Let me see if my new image repo let's me share the file right.
Yep. It's working. I might be able to create a better top fade there - maybe.

I'm looking at this larger image and am at a loss to discern any useful level of "fade" that can't be excused as a lighting issue. This really doesn't look like someone Teleporting. My first thought is that this is some sort of "cage" or imprisonment Power. Bare minimum, this looks like an Immobilization effect, not a Teleport.
If you want inspiration for Teleport, may I suggest an examination of these tray icons from Star Trek Online as a possible source of inspiration?
. . . .
The first one there is for Photonic Fleet, which seems like an odd choice for a suggestion, but look at it again. Large in foreground, copy smaller and offset implying duplication at a distance. Twiddle the spacing on the bars to be a progressive interruption (more on one end, less on the other) and you ought to have the basis for a basic icon.
Alternatively, if you want to go with the "portal" idea, there's the Quantum Slipstream icons next in line. Either one would be reminiscent of the "Teleport Rings" we were all familiar with in City of Heroes in addition to having an inherent implication of movement into the distance. Something along these lines would also work quite well as a Teleport Power Icon.
The other two are the Lunge icon and the Accelerated Movement icon, both of which carry strong overtones of "fast movement" in their design. This stands in stark contrast to the "imprisoned man standing on a bomb going off" iconography shown here:

So if you're inclined to change the icon, please do.

The disk at the bottom is inspired by the teleporters on Star Trek as a matter of fact. :D I'm a HUGE fan of the Star Trek series and even played the PnP game (never got into the online version - yet).

The glow was an attempt to create a "flash" effect. Think of the teleports in the more recent Star Treks over the "sparkle" effect in the original series (which was done - literally - by swirling glitter in water!) Unfortunately the filter effect I used seems to have also created a background "glow" of the same color.

There is a fade affect on the mannequin but clearly not as strong as I had hoped.

The idea of teleportation is to move a character from place to place regardless of their activity. Gates, warps and portals have a moving character - that is the movement of the character is essential to the process of travel, whereas in teleportation the movement of the character is of no consequence. Think of Marvel's Shadowcrawler for example. Also of D&D's various teleport spells and of course CoX itself. For this reason I must reject the idea of a gate, warp, or portal to represent a teleport effect as they are contrary to established definitions. The idea of suggested distance is not a bad one but hard to communicate - note that you had to explain it yourself. An issue I also have to consider with matters of color and color blindness is having high contrast. I was cautious with my "fade" as a consequence.

I'm thinking of dropping the mannequin entirely and the rings. Retaining the platform disk and creating a white, elongated "flash" reminiscent of Star Trek..

I must say though, the amount of rednames on this thread make me very happy :D

Am I a "Red name"? My name and everyone elses looks blue to me. Or are you meaning the "Developer Icon"? I used a modified icon from Robert Jackobson in the early version of the forums to create that symbol (Sort the member list by join date sometime and see where I pop up. :D )

Rednames just means Dev's, it's been a while since I have seen so many different dev's in one thread. I would do that but I don't know how lol But I can see by your join date that you have been here for awhile :D

—

The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One

It's a broken link for me.
I posted the pic in #77, do you see it? Unfortunately I'm not at my home PC right now or I would try to make it better with animations and whatnot but that will have to do I guess
So instead of it being a plain rectangle it comes in from the side and has a rounded end so you can retract/extend out/ or pull it completely off of the edge. If it comes completely off the edge then the other end will round out as well. But if you drag it to any edge it will snap in and can be slid up or down or rearranged with other tabs as desired. It can be shrunk down or added on to up to 10 I guess is the limit?
For example, Picture it working sort of like the windows start button, click it and it brings out the tab, click it again and it goes away

The image hosting site where you are at must be blocked. Have the other images I've posted shown up? I've created my own image host since those original postings. If those other ones show up for you I can re-host accordingly.

I thought that might be the reason for the rounded edge. I have a larger mock up but I'm not sure if I should do a public share of it this early to give you a better context of the UI elements. The reason for the 10-button limit is to allow binding of the powers in a bar to a the numeric keys 1, 2, ...,9,0. There has been a suggestion to use two more keys, - and = but there were issues with that. CoX had the same arrangement. Interestingly enough doing tabbed control sets has been a recent proposal. The method you suggest may be one of the ways we might go. Remember in CoX you had up to 40(!) controls at a time showing. 4 rows of 10. They could be set to lock or pop up on Alt , Control, and Shift key combinations. People also used mouse clicks for the powers but largely everything was keyboard based. CoX was, and CoT is expected to be, mostly keyboard focused, though we are taking steps to accommodate game controllers and touch surfaces too.

Yeah, I'm on a work computer so that probably has something to do with why I can't see it.

But yeah, I was going to say I for one played it mainly with the keyboard keys and usually memorized the attack keys. What I was thinking was to have it be able to have a quick pop up button("Alt" for example, or the clickable tab) that will bring it back up if you need to view the powers. I think semi-transparent tabs give a more neat and accessible/customizable way of storing things like the powers, maps, inventory.

The tab would turn a solid color when hovered over with the cursor(or when holding down Alt), and if hovered over or held down for a short time it would bring up a hint box saying what it is. The different styles of tabs could be color coded. Powers - Purple, Inventory/Money - Green, Map - Yellow (this can be completely customizable to make it easier to differentiate for those with sight ailments). To go even further with that point, you could have options to set it up to play different sounds when you go over the different tabs. You could give slider options to the transparency as well from 100 down to 0 for those who didn't want them to appear(and even a disable check box for those who don't want to render them)

If you go with the 4 bars of powers, You could do something like this so you could easily access whichever tab you want. Clicking it again would put it back into "tab" mode

I'm thinking of dropping the mannequin entirely and the rings. Retaining the platform disk and creating a white, elongated "flash" reminiscent of Star Trek.

I believe that what might create the impression of a CC power for the current teleport icon is that the rings are quite reminiscent of CC icons in City of Heroes. For anyone unfamiliar with them (or forgetting them), they used a relatively wide ring around the legs for immobilization, around the torso for stuns, and around the whole body for holds and sleeps. Slows actually looked very much like this TP icon, with several narrower rings around the body.

Given how much of the community comes from a CoH background, I expect we're going to look at it with that in mind.

Izzy wrote:

I guess, with Aesthetic Decoupling... maybe Teleport animation can use a Portal...
... Portals that you jump into, some allowing any player to use as well, Maybe flat on the Floor.
Even have a different looking one.. kinda like the Ouro portal. etc...

This got me wondering if it would be possible to have the portal actually show the area you're teleporting to (and on the back half of the animation when you rematerialize, another portal showing the area you came from). I think that would be a cool visual effect.

This got me wondering if it would be possible to have the portal actually show the area you're teleporting to (and on the back half of the animation when you rematerialize, another portal showing the area you came from). I think that would be a cool visual effect.

Ahhh, that might require an extra in game camera capturing to a Render Texture, which isn't Cheap, but doable. :P

Hmmm... it could be a little cheaper if the 2nd camera at target location wasnt showing realtime images. Just a still shot, taken once at start. Camera can exclude any Players on the other side, dont render the cameras Players Layer Mask. :D

Or something like that can be done if the Users Graphics settings are set to Low, or Med.
Perhaps.. High and Ultra could show Live previews though? ;)

I believe that what might create the impression of a CC power for the current teleport icon is that the rings are quite reminiscent of CC icons in City of Heroes. For anyone unfamiliar with them (or forgetting them), they used a relatively wide ring around the legs for immobilization, around the torso for stuns, and around the whole body for holds and sleeps. Slows actually looked very much like this TP icon, with several narrower rings around the body.
Given how much of the community comes from a CoH background, I expect we're going to look at it with that in mind.

If you were angling for evoking the notion of this kind of a ring transporter ...

... that really only "works" in the context of an animated image. If you're working with a static icon image, the "sense of what is happening" gets lost VERY quickly. Also, with aesthetic decoupling, the use of that iconography is unfortunately a bit too specific.

Furthermore, I'd expect use of the Stargate Transport Rings to be more of a "site-to-site" transport sort of thing, functioning like a non-linear elevator, and done as a Group Teleport styled Power (complete with longer animation sequence). It could also be used for a "long range teleport" which doesn't rely on line of sight, but is instead doing the "teleport to map pin" routine. Point being that it would be a longer, more "luxurious" animation involved, rather than being any kind of "fast teleport" (which you'd want for personal use/travel).

—

Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.

The idea of suggested distance is not a bad one but hard to communicate - note that you had to explain it yourself. An issue I also have to consider with matters of color and color blindness is having high contrast. I was cautious with my "fade" as a consequence.
I'm thinking of dropping the mannequin entirely and the rings. Retaining the platform disk and creating a white, elongated "flash" reminiscent of Star Trek..
I appreciate the suggestions and criticism though.

I had to explain the notion because I was taking something which originally belonged to a completely different context and wanted to be unambiguous in my communication of the notion.

To clarify, you could even do something as simple as combining the basic iconography I gave you to come up with something more obvious. Combine the underlying images of these two things:

+

Bottom left, you have a mannequin (large).
Top right, you have the same mannequin (small).
In between the two silhouettes, you put "speed lines" implying movement into the distance in a line of sight transport.

The problem, of course, is that you're dealing with a circular field instead of a square one, so you don't get to make use of the corner spaces in this fashion, but that's a basic idea/outline of something you could try. At a very basic level, you're trying to suggest a transfer towards the horizon line without "moving" through the intervening distance.

So I'm thinking that a twin mannequin, one large in the foreground, one small in the background, with speed lines between them, ought to do the job of supplying the iconography you need.

And on a similar note, for any sort of Group Teleport, you could use something akin to this for the icon ... ... especially if one of the animation options is Stargate Transport Rings.

—

Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.

Honestly I just don't get this "fear" of alienating a tiny group of people who's machines can't handle this game. I would suspect that there will be different graphical options to choose from in the settings (low, medium, high, ultra, etc.) as well as particle effect options, draw distance, anti aliasing variables and so on. If someone can't make it work with all of those choices, the problem is not from MWM, it's from the person trying to use their toaster to play a PC game.
Be proud of your work. Show it off to the best of your ability.

"Fuck you, poor people"

But seriously, making some changed to the game to increase the "people who can't afford 1200$ gaming rigs" marketshare is wise.